The contemporary model of prenatal care focuses primarily on medical aspects of pregnancy, with less emphasis placed on health promotion and women's psychosocial needs. There is evidence that many women are frustrated with this approach, and would prefer holistic care that offers continuity, enhanced education, and informal peer support. Evidence is also lacking that this approach improves many pregnancy outcomes. Both of these issues - women's experience of care, and adverse perinatal outcomes - are especially acute among African-American and Hispanic women. Policymakers and researchers currently propose the redesign of care to create more women-centered paradigms to address these problems. One model, group prenatal care (GPNC), meets many of these recommendations. GPNC is a culturally-sensitive program that may be particularly suited to the needs of minority women. Anecdotal reports indicate that women are happy with GPNC and the model may also improve certain pregnancy outcomes. However, to date, there is little research on women's experience of GPNC, and there have been no in-depth studies that describe women's experience of GPNC. The purpose of this project is to examine the experience of women participating in GPNC. The design is an exploratory, descriptive, longitudinal, prospective study. Semi- structured interviews will be conducted at four points in pregnancy and postpartum. In addition, participant-observation and medical record review will provide contextual information for interpreting interview data. This study will provide information for clinicians and policymakers considering implementing or modifying GPNC. It may also assist in the development of new instruments to study GPNC, or to compare GPNC with conventional prenatal care. This research is consistent with the NINR mission of supporting research on health promotion and improving quality of life within the context of family and community, and focusing on the special needs of underserved, at-risk populations. Group prenatal care is an innovative model of prenatal care that women may find more rewarding than conventional care. While there are several studies that examine medical outcomes of group prenatal care, there are currently no studies examining women's experience of this model. By talking to women and observing the group prenatal care process over time, this study will provide in-depth information on women's experience of group prenatal care. This information will provide understanding of how this model works for women, allow for possible modifications of the model, or identify areas that merit further research. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]